Water Polo WA's Annual Awards night crowned Phantoms Water Polo Club as 2026 Club of the Year.

The award celebrates the club that has displayed an outstanding level of engagement within the community across multiple levels. Club President, Roslyn Soanes and other nominees, attended the Water Polo WA Awards night at Raffles Hotel on Wednesday 1/4/2026. It was a great event celebrating our sport and brought together members of Clubs from across the State. To read more about the other Phantoms WPC nominees CLICK HERE

We are all proud to be a part of such a great Club and thank our partners, City of Stirling, Tailored Events Group and All Type Flooring for their continued support of our great Club.

Want to get involved in our Club? 

Read on for the full nomination and see why Phantoms Water Polo Club WON 2026 Club of the Year!

Phantoms Water Polo Club, established in 1987 with a focus on Fun, Fitness and Friendship. Inclusion is one the Club’s core values, demonstrated by our partnership with the Perth White Pointers, our LGBTQI+ Club within our Club. Phantoms WPC focuses on opening our Sport to a broader range of participants, with an additional focus on keeping girls and women in sport.

We operate out of Stirling Leisure – Inglewood, our new home since early in the 2024/2025 season. We have steadily grown our junior programs since our move and are working with the City of Stirling to attract more local residents to play Water Polo.

Inclusion-focussed

Inclusion National Carnival

In November 2025, the Club supported the Perth White Pointers to host the National Pride Carnival. 50+ LGBTQI+ athletes from across Australia played a 3-day tournament at Stirling Leisure – Inglewood. City of Stirling were thrilled that the Tournament utilised the mid-pool ball release mechanism which was installed as part of the recent refurbishment.

Senior Social Games - Adult novice players

In addition to the 14 teams Phantoms has in the WAJL and WASL competitions, Phantoms hosts its own Mixed Social League on Mondays. We currently have 40 members playing at this level who don’t yet play in the WASL competition. This is one of the few opportunities in Metro WA that adults new to the sport have any avenue to play WP. The numbers have grown over the last few years and have been maintained in the move to Inglewood Pool. We hope to expand to a Women’s Comp in the coming seasons.

KidSport

Phantoms has one of the highest rates of uptake of the KIDSPORT voucher program in the sport of water polo across Metro and regional WA – this is another example of the Club’s commitment to making Water Polo more accessible to non-traditional audiences.

Strategic Partnerships

In addition to the focus on inclusion, Phantoms has created several strategic partnerships this season.

AYC

Supporting WPWA and WPA in hosting AYC at Stirling Leisure - Inglewood, trialling new equipment (inflatable pontoons) to enable referees to view the pool from 2 sides.

Our strategic partnership with Floatables, a business primarily for boating pontoons and water yoga platforms, has seen the adaptation of their technology to trial several options for walkways which enable a traditional 50m pool to be adaptable to host 2 fields of play. The Floatables platforms allow referees and other officials to access the field from 2 sides.

This technology is still in development, and the Club has approved the purchase of a 25m walkway for a more stable option. This equipment has attracted the interest of Swimming AUS who hired the equipment for safety platforms for an open water event in Bunbury. Other regional Clubs have also expressed interested in the products.

Inter-Club Collaboration

As a small metro Club, Phantoms recognises the value of working with other Clubs to enable our members access to a variety of experiences we don’t yet have the capacity to host ourselves. Following the success of partnership with Peel WPC in the u18 Girls B in the previous season, Phantoms collaborated with the New Wave, Triton and Dolphins Clubs this season, enabling development for our youngest members.

Club Governance

The Club's record keeping has always been outstanding - hightlighted by the celebration of a member's 500th game in the 25/26 Season. This not only shows the longevity of the Club and loyalty of its members, but the impeccable record keeping which enabled us to record this milestone in the absense of a continuous membership platform over the years.

This season Phantoms have focussed on utilising the tools already available to us. We have active Social Media sites and have updated and improved our use of Revolutionise Sport platform.

We have implemented more reliable and consistent communication tools to members – reestablishing a regular newsletter, creating a Community space in WhatsApp and working towards a shared-drive system for digital record-keeping.

The Club has started planning and are looking forward to another successful season in 2026/27.